RE: What's a PiJack?

ninjatrent — Sat, 02 Dec 2017 15:00:00 GMT

The Pi Zero W is an amazing little SBC for the cost.

Even the Zero without wifi is worth purchase as it will work with most USB Wi-Fi modules.

RE: What's a PiJack?

mcb1 — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 11:12:23 GMT

[mention:0ef8f6ce31dc4b29997c209958dfc2f1:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05]

It's a great concept and an interesting way to extend your Wifi.

My only concern is the mixing of mains and low voltage equipment within the same housing.

In some countries there is a physical speration required, and some additional protection to ensure the low voltage wiring is isolated.

(ie a plastic spacer between the main and low voltage side).

Since the forum is global the electrical laws in one country may not be suitable for others, so a warning might be worth adding.

I note your charger is the old fashion mains transfomer style, rather than the switchmode style we often see.

It may have been deliberate, but IMO it is the better choice for this purpose.

The largest cause of fires here in NZ is switchmode chargers left plugged in.

They work by rectifying the mains, then using a high frequency DC to DC converter (effecting reducing the 200/400v DC down to 5v).

Obviously the capacitors on the converter side have a limited life and I've seen it as low as 1000hrs at the rated temperature.

I suspect we're going to see more power supply issues on equipment with the move to universal switch mode style supplies being adopted by manufacturers. In the past the power supply was usually the last thing looked at.

I'm interested to see the final product, and these PiZero with their reduced size are excellent for these applications.

Cheers

Mark

RE: What's a PiJack?

rachaelp — Thu, 23 Nov 2017 01:00:02 GMT

Nice first blog post Craig!

Keep practicing with soldering the tiny components and you’ll get the hang of it. Get a decent soldering station, tweezers, solder, flux, solder wick etc and a reasonable illuminated magnifier if you dont already have these too.

Best Regards,

Rachael

RE: What's a PiJack?

makerkaren — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 22:03:13 GMT

Wow, you got to work fast. Nice first post. Great project!